


On My Way

by Talc



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Bigotry & Prejudice, Blues, Canonical Character Death, Country & Western, F/F, F/M, Historical Accuracy, Historical Inaccuracy, Jazz - Freeform, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, vaudeville
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-09-21 00:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9522080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talc/pseuds/Talc
Summary: After the 1920 Louisiana Hurricane destroys their home, the Hawke family leaves the Mississippi Delta Region, heading North to make it in New York. A trip that’s supposed to take a couple weeks turns into months, then years as they find their paths blocked and bolted. Along the way they meet a cast of characters equally down and out. Together they work to make names for themselves in the big city…If they ever get there.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not a historian or even a history major, and therefore nothing I say should be taken completely and utterly as truth. If you want to learn more about the things that happen in this fic, the Google is a great tool to fact check yourself. I already did that for me, I'm not doing other people's work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a romance fic. Granted, their will be romance in later chapters, but the first six chapters are just introductions on how the Hawke family meets the DA II team (-Sebastian because he's a prick and I already had too many characters to deal with), and then this is basically a 'how the band formed' kind of thing, don't question it.

**Prologue**

The Louisiana Hurricane of 1920 lasted 7 days. It only caused about 1 million dollars of damage. It had one fatality. This makes for a rather mild storm. Despite this, the Hawke family lost their home. It was the fire that got it, they’re sure. Or maybe the flooding. An accident that could have been prevented, but their home was lost and there was nothing to do about it. 

Since they lost their father some years previous, it was just Leandra Hawke and her three children. Many a person had urged her to remarry, but she struggled stubbornly on her own for years without seemingly a care. Unknown to her youngest children, she was grappling to keep them in a house at all, and no one showed much want to help the woman. When the hurricane hit, they lost everything. 

With growing retail prices, buying a new home in New Orleans was impossible for the now broke family. They had no ties left, other than Leandra’s brother who lived in New York City, miles and miles and miles away. Without a choice, they packed up all they could salvage and took to the road. With no money, and no transportation, they slowly made their way north, following the Mississippi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason I started writing this is I recently took a class on the history of American Popular Music and I was thinking about it and decided that 1920s America is the perfect setting for a DA II AU. This is not a jazz age, prohibition, flapper AU, I've seen enough of those and they all tend to romanticize an era that was actually rather shit. This is a pre-Great Depression AU exploring mostly the American Southeast and Southwest, and the history of blues, jazz, and 'hillbilly' music, as well as the situations of rural America pre-Depression, which no one ever really talks too much about, unless you're Steinbeck. 
> 
> I'm happy to answer any questions about this story, I have literally pages of notes dictating the path the characters are going to take and why specific things are included, and stuff that won't come up in the story (stuff like why Louisiana? and how I converted Thedas to 20s US). I'll answer history-based questions, too, because I've been doing A LOT of research, and I am genuinely passionate about history, I just don't want people to quote me on my answers, or hold me to it, that's not my job. I am not a professional authority on musical history.
> 
> Speaking of that, there will be music recs after each chapter, because i'm now your DA music history teacher, here's your homework:
> 
> We're not gonna cover ragtime in this story, but Scott Joplin deserves some credit for what ragtime did for the following music, so you should just listen to this song, played by Joplin's own hands. You probably already know it, anyways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMAtL7n_-rc


	2. Aveline

Bethany’s guitar was on its last legs, but she had no choice but to keep playing it, it was all she had. Carver’s cornet was doing a lot better. They gotten both at a pawn shop in New Orlean’s French Quarter courtesy of their older brother, Garrett, a thirteenth birthday present. That was back when they had money, and a home.

Bethany makes eye contact with her brother then counts. One. Two. Three.

They both know how to play a twelve-bar blues, and play it well, and so play they did. There wasn’t as much real music here in Mississippi, not in Bethany’s opinion. If you wanted real music, you need to follow bands as they played along the streets of New Orleans. Which they weren’t anywhere close to.

The twins are aiming to earn a little bit of money, as much as they can, on the streets of Greenville Mississippi, right off the side of the great MI River! They’d been in this town for three months now, five months since they left Louisiana. They’d gotten only so far before they found themselves at a roadblock. There were too many people migrating north, and transportation was scarce. Without the money to bribe a captain, the Hawke family was stuck in this town, barely scrapping by.

God bless Garrett. The eldest Hawke son had found himself some odd, if rather shady, jobs around Greenville, enough to cover them for a few months, even found them a place to stay. Currently he’d had the fortune to get a job working construction for some big house in town. His work was keeping them together. Granted, the family of four are living in someone’s barn, with the horses and the straw, but anything was better than sleeping under a tree for the night like they’d done so many times before.

Bethany and Carver converse in solos, improvising their way through blues and jazz and all that fine stuff. Bethany wishes Garrett was here with them, thinking how his saxophone always added a nice mix to their songs. Their music was never so good with just a guitar and cornet, lacking at least one more brass instrument to fill in the rather flat music. The young girl pouts, quickly humming herself back into the song, playing a backing beat for Carver as he staggers his way with his cornet.

Someone drops a coin in their tin and Bethany smiles at them brightly. This was all they had, every cent counts.

A few songs later and Carver calls for a break, walking off to find himself some water. Bethany sits at their spot on the street and strums her guitar, humming along to the soft twang of her old instrument. Not blues or jazz, just something sweet and moving. She almost doesn’t see the man, the sun blazing in her eyes a little too brightly, but there he is, reaching down his hand as if to drop a coin in.

She prepares a smile.

The tin can is grasped in the man’s fingers and suddenly he’s off running. That piece of trash! Bethany jumps up, chasing after the thief. “Give that back!” She shouts, struggling to run in her skirt with her guitar grasped in her hand.

She chases him a good way down the street before he suddenly comes to a halt, not seeming to notice the teenage girl running up behind him, too busy glaring at the person in front of him.

“Move it, fella, you’re blockin’ me!” The thief growls.

“I’m a woman!” The person hisses, smacking the man’s face and wrenching the tin from him. “Now scat.”

The thief seems to consider fighting back, but a look from the vigilante has him running off with his tail between his legs.

Bethany looks upon the woman with wonder. She’s wearing worker’s clothes; a pair of trousers and a plain white shirt, rolled up and stained with dirt and dust, her clearly defined muscles on display. Her hair is a blazing red, held back with a scarlet bandanna, and bands. She’s holding the tin can in her hand, looking down at Bethany with a soft expression that does not quite fit her hard features.

“Is this yours?” She asks, holding out the tin.

“Yes, ma’am.” Bethany says, remembering her manners as she carefully takes the tin from the woman’s hands. “Thank you very much.” She curtsies slightly in respect, awkward with her hands full.

“No need for that. Just doing my part.” The woman looks down the street where the thief ran off, eyes going cold. “Scum like him should be better kept off the streets. No honour in stealing.”

“Bethany!” Said girl whips around at the sound of her brother’s voice. Carver is running up to her, looking quite frazzled.

“I’m sorry, Carver, someone stole our tin.” Bethany apologises, realising her brother had returned to find but dust in the air.

“You got it back? Who’s this?” Carver comes up behind his twin, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking up at the woman.

“I’m Aveline.” The small smile is back on the woman’s lips.

“She got the tin back for me.” Bethany smiles.

“Thank you very much, ma’am.” Carver says with a hard nod. “Come on, sis, Garrett’s waiting for us.” He tugs at her arm, pulling her back down the street.

“Alright, Carver!” Bethany scowls at her twin, wrenching her arm away. “Thank you, again, Aveline!” She calls back to the woman, who watches them run away.

-

Garrett is covered in sawdust and mud when they find him outside the general store. He wipes sweat from his brow as he waves at them, the twins jogging over to their older brother. His face looks grime, like he has bad news.

He does, of course. “What is it?” Bethany says as soon as she catches on.

“The construction job is done.”

“Dammit.” Carver hisses. That job had been what was keeping them together these few months.

“I thought we’d have another week, at least, but things were easier than we thought…I’m sorry.” Garrett looks at his siblings with sad eyes, though he does not openly frown.

“But they said we wouldn’t be able to catch a ferry till at least next week. What are we going to do?” Carver fists his hands in his hair. If they don’t have any income, they starve. No way they could survive off their street performance change.

“I don’t know. I’ll…I’ll come up with something.” Garrett sighs.

“Maybe I can help.” A familiar voice says. Bethany smiles and turns to look at the bronze haired lady form earlier.

“Garrett, this is Aveline, she caught a thief for us. Aveline, this is our older brother, Garrett.” The brighter of the Hawke twins proudly introduces her older brother to the nice woman.

“What thief?” Is Garrett’s first response, glaring at the twins, before whipping back to look at Aveline. “Thank you for that, really.” He tries to look after his family as much as he can, but there’s only so much you can do.

“I overheard your conversation, thought I might be able to lend a hand.”

Garrett stares at Aveline for a good minute. “Carver, Bethany, head back to the barn. I’ll speak to Ms. Aveline.” The two teenagers share a look before nodding and running off back to their mom. Garrett watches them leave. “Come, we’ll speak in private.” He nods to the local inn and the two walk there together, taking a table in the back, dark and out of the way.

“Talk.” Is all Garrett says.

“You’re from Louisiana, correct? I recognised the accent.” Aveline doesn’t wait for Hawke to response, just keeps talking, her voice careful and official-sounding. “I’m from Louisiana too. Left a month ago after…Well, after my husband died.” The woman doesn’t look like she wants to share, but she slowly makes eye contact with Garrett, keeping her voice steady. “It was smoke inhalation. Wesley was caught in a fire and it took too long for me to pull him out. It took him a few days, but…”

“I’m sorry, Aveline.” Hawke says genuinely, placing a hand over hers. “We lost our home in the hurricane. We’ve been trying to get to New York, we have an uncle there and a family home, but after the ferry broke down…”

“I see.” Another moment of eye contact before Aveline pulls her hand away, her gaze losing it’s sadness to go cold, professional. “I can get you on the next steamboat out of here, but I need you to do a favour for me first. Nothing illegal, or immoral, just a favour.”

Hawke lets his face fall to the sombre look as her. A ticket out of Mississippi? Sounded too good to be true. “What’s the favour?” He asks with a deliberate sharpness.

“Pretend to be my husband.” At first Hawke thinks she’s joking, but the look in her eyes is a steely seriousness. “Let me explain. My father was in the military for many years. He has a friend who works just up the Mississippi, willing to lend me a favour. Thing is, I need to get out of here too, and the only way I can convince him to let you and your family come with me is if he thinks we’re married. It’ll only last a trip up river, a few weeks at most, a charade. You can handle that, yes?”

Hawke matches her gaze, not thinking over the proposal for long. His steady work was out and they’d been having trouble finding odd jobs in town. With the ferry backed up they’d be stuck here for another week, and he wasn’t so sure they’d be allowed to stay in the barn much longer. He had to think of his family. Pretending to be someone’s husband isn’t too bad a deal.

“Besides, he’s an old fashioned type. Seeing me travelling without a husband might put him off.” Aveline adds bitterly.

“Well, my mother’s been picking at me to get married. S’pose it won’t be too much trouble.” He holds out his hand to her. “You got yourself a deal, Miss Aveline.”

They shake hands; strong, sturdy, professional.

“I’ll meet you outside of town tomorrow morning.” With that, Aveline stands and exits the building. Hawke soon leaves to return to his family.

-

Leandra takes her son’s proposal better than he thought she would. At first she was concerned about actual feelings existing between Hawke and Aveline, but he had quickly shot down that pathway of thought. They just needed to get to New York, and if that meant faking marriage, that was easy enough.  

Carver is more than sceptical about the whole thing, but him and Bethany are just happy to move on, Bethany especially as she had taken a liking to Aveline. She assured her older brother that the woman seemed perfectly respectable and reasonable and all that.

They don’t have much to bring with them; just a suitcase each, their instruments, and their dad’s old harmonica. They meet Aveline outside of town. Her and Leandra introduce themselves and Aveline passes Hawke a ring to wear. She holds his wrist tight before he can take it, leaning close to him with a steely glower.

“That’s my late husband’s wedding ring. I’m letting you use it for the sake of this ruse, but if you harm it in any way I will personally gut you and make sure your body is scattered across the Mississippi.” She mutters into Garrett’s ear, too low for the others to hear.

“I understand.” Hawke says in return, sliding on the ring. “I promise you, Aveline. No harm will come to this ring.”

“Thank you.” Aveline almost breathes a sigh of relief. The walk out of Greenville starts awkwardly silent before Leandra strikes up a soft-spoken conversation with Aveline. Hawke hangs back with his siblings, only catching word of his mother’s comforts to the recently widowed woman, something she shared with her.

Carver looks like he wants to start a fight, but he’s looked like that for a while now. Thankfully Bethany starts a conversation with her elder brother before the moody teenager can try anything. As they talk about Jazz, and Blues, and Garrett playing with them again, Carver eventually simmers down and joins in, admitting their music sounds fuller with all three of them.

“We really want some percussion, though. We need some beat.” He adds.

“Does mom playing the tambourine count as a beat?” Bethany asks, not serious in the slightest.

Carver doesn’t look the slightest bit amused. “No.” Hawke covers his laugh with a cough, noticing Leandra look back at the three with a glare. All three let out something akin to a laugh this time, and the sound makes Leandra smile, if only for a moment.

They follow Lake Ferguson to the defining river, the sun low in the sky as they arrive at the tributary that connects the two bodies of water together, walking till they find a man who stands with a dingy river-boat behind him, seemingly bored as he smokes a roll of tobacco.  

“Hello, sir.” Aveline smiles awkwardly as they approach, and the man beams back.

“Aveline? Why, I haven’t seen you since you were this high.” Aveline looks reasonably embarrassed as the man introduces himself to the Hawke family, shaking hands and talking about Aveline’s childhood. Hawke had been under the impression this man was merely a family acquaintance, with the way Aveline talked about him, but it seems the guy was actually her father’s very close friend. It’s obvious why Aveline needed Garrett to get this guy’s help, though. He makes more than one comment about him being worried she’d try and travel without a man, but her husband seemed capable, and god Aveline would it kill you to dress like a lady for once. That aside, the man is amicable and comments not about the Hawke Family’s heritage, so they board the questionably sound boat and are soon moving slowly along the Mississippi River.

New York was still a daunting mark in their path. Even with this trip up river they’d be travelling months east to the city. Still, the glowering city seemed a little more in sight as Hawke stared down the river, thinking about the state they were leaving behind. Louisiana was long gone now. They were on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a music based AU, so I feel like I should drop some musical homework on ya'll, but I can't give you exact examples of the music in this chapter because it's mostly improvisational, as Jazz and Blues tend to be. Writing songs and performing them exactly the same wasn't so much a thing during this time period, mostly you'd just write up base decisions. New disclaimer, though, I am not a musician, and some things that happen in this story will probably not make instrumental sense...We're gonna ignore that a bit.
> 
> Anyways, musical homework:
> 
> So the story mentions "real music" being from New Orleans, and that's mostly talking about the jazz and blues music that bands would play in the city. I'd say the best example I can give to you is some King Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBUfFcR29k4
> 
> Twelve Bar Blues is like just a simple form of blues used mostly in improvisational groups. Essentially if you get a group of blues players together, guarantee they know how to play a twelve bar. Bit more of a modern example, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqWl2Zxs2es


	3. Merrill

The boat stops on the border of Arkansas, sputtering and making noises akin to a dog hacking up a dead rabbit. Aveline’s friend tells them that it’ll be a week at the least before he can get the boat running again, and they’re forced to head into town and find themselves a place to stay.

They can’t settle in town, so they make camp off the side of an abandoned field, where crops can no longer grow, and they can set up a campfire. With a week in town, there’s nothing much to do but for Aveline and Garrett to grab a labour job on a nearby plantation, and the twins to head out into town while their mother keeps watch over the camp.

Arkansas is a better audience than Mississippi, but not by a large margin. Bethany and Carver gain a few cents more than normal, and decide silently to let themselves do something with their extra coin. That’s when they find out that a Vaudeville show is in town.

Carver likes Vaudeville. He enjoys the comedians and their small tricks, the geek sideshow acts with cruel jokes. Bethany likes the music. She likes the sweet singers, and listening to the accompaniment. There’s a particular lady who’s voice feels like a river, and reminds Beth of some of the bar singers back home. Then there’s girl in the pit who plays the fiddle better than Bethany has ever heard. She taps her foot and kicks while she plays fast and frenzied, or slow and smooth.

Carter leaves Bethan during the last act of the show, telling her he’ll be back and for her to _wait_ , so she wanders around outside the venue, humming a song to herself, guitar slung on her back.

“No, I can do better, I promise!” The shouts of a pleading, accented voice ring through the back of the streets, breaking the cadence of Bethany’s hum. She stops to watch as a burly man throws the violinist from the show out onto the street. She’s clutching a suitcase in one hand and has a death grip on a fiddle case with her other.

“We don’t need no heretic heathens sullyin’ our good name.” Says the man, slamming the door on the woman. She claws at the door for a moment, trying to knock herself in before sighing and slumping over herself. Her shoulders heave and Bethany can see the woman’s eyes wet with tears.

Bethany approaches her, feeling rather badly about watching a woman cry in the street. “Are you okay, ma’am?”

The violinist jumps, throwing her head up to look at Bethany with wide, glassy eyes. She’d started crying. “Oh, sorry, I’m fine, really.” She says without a shred of confidence in her voice.

“You don’t look fine.”

The woman sniffs, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I just got fired, is all.”

Bethany kneels down next to the woman, offering her a handkerchief, which she gratefully takes, wiping harshly at her eyes. “Where’d you learn to play the fiddle like that?” She asks the woman. “You’re too good to be fired.”

“Oh, you’re too kind…” The violinist smiles, eyes shining despite the tears. “Well I met the devil at the crossroads and she gave me her violin and the hands to play it, in exchange for my immortal soul.” She responds in her thick welsh accent, looking at Bethany with large, green eyes and nodding along to her own words, completely honest and forward.

“You traded your soul for instrumental talent?” Bethany raises an eyebrow.

“Well, I wasn’t usin’ it.” The woman shrugs. “And she said it wasn’t really worth too much to anyone else.”

“The devil’s a woman?” Bethany responds sceptically. “I thought Satan was a man? Or like a creature or something, red and with a tail?”

“No. No, ma’am, the devil is a lady. She’s got white hair and burning eyes, like fire.” She mimes her hands along with her words, making her eyes look scary and waving her fingers. “She was very nice about the whole thing, you know? I wasn’t expecting it, ‘cause she’s the devil and all, but apparently Satan is really tactful.”

“…Okay…Is that why that man called you a heathen?” Bethany looks at the door the woman was thrown out of.

“Oh, well…Yes, I suppose. He was a very mean man. Kept calling me Migrant, but that’s not my name! I can imagine why he got it wrong, though, Merrill is awful close…”

“Your name’s Merrill? I’m Bethany, Bethany Hawke.” Bethany holds out her hand to Merrill.

“It’s very lovely to meet you. I’m sorry that you have to bother with me.” She hands back the handkerchief, rising to her feet and brushing off her skirts. Bethany notices how stained and ragged the bottom of her skirt is. It’s a lovely green colour, though, and the boots she wears underneath are quite nice too.

“It’s no bother, Merrill.” Bethany smiles and stands up along with her. They both walk away from the theatre, Merrill clutching her things to her chest.

“Oh, what am I goin’ to do now? This was my only job, and it’s not like I’m even close to the shore. Not that I can go back home anyways.” She sniffs, wiping at her now dry eyes with her thumbs, smearing patches of dusty dirt on her cheeks.

“You’re an immigrant, then?” Bethany asks, raising up her hand to brush off the debris from Merrill’s face, smiling when she blushes.

“Oh, yes. I’m from Wales. My family got real cross with me, though, so I took a ship out here. Got a job working Vaudeville, with the help of the Devil, of course. I imagine this is the beginning of mine losing my soul, though I haven’t given it away too long.” Merrill frowns at her own words. “You’re not from around here, though, either. Are you an immigrant?”

“Oh, not really. We’re from Louisiana. Me and my family. But my daddy was an immigrant. From Libya.” The two wander down the road, Bethany keeping an eye out for Carver. He’d be cross with her, again, for wandering off, but she figured she’d gotten to meet this nice lady, so she’d take the lecture. “I’m real sorry, though. I know things aren’t too easy for immigrants.”

“It’s not too bad.” Merrill says, but she’s frowning. “They make all sorts of jokes, course, and sometimes I get spit on. Things were nicer on the road. Immigrants are all sorts of funny characters in minstrel shows, these days.”

Bethany frowns. She too understood the stereotypes minstrel shows liked to play. The first time she ever got to see a Vaudeville show she had been ten. Her brother had taken her and Carver as a treat for them. When they got to the minstrel bit, Garrett told them to close their eyes for a bit, stop paying attention. She hadn’t found out until years later, after their dad had died, that what they did in the minstrel shows was just mean caricatures of real people, people like their dad. And now, people like Merrill.

“Oh, what am I gonna do now?” Merrill repeats, covering her stained-red face with her hands. “I can’t go home, I’m years away from New York… I’m alone…”

Bethany’s heart just about breaks at seeing this older woman tear herself apart in front of her. She looks so young, so scared, yet Bethany is the child here, she knows that.

“We’re…We’re going to New York.” Bethany whispers without even thinking.

“W-what?” Merrill peeks through her fingers, eyes wide as she stares pitifully at the young teenager in front of her.

“My family, and I, we’re going to New York…You could come with us?”

Oh boy, she was gonna get in so much trouble for this.

-

Bethany finds Carver down the street, looking angry as all else.

“Beth!” He shouts when he sees her, jogging forwards to grab her arm. “I swear, all you do is wander away!”

“Sorry, Carv.” Bethany pushes her twin off her, attempting an apologetic smile. “I’m fine, though.”

“I can see that.” Carver glares at his twin, huffing and brushing some dust off her shoulder. He’s fussing over her when he suddenly stops to stare at Merrill.

His cheeks flush and he immediately straightens. “Who’s your friend?” His voice is softer, higher in pitch.

Bethany giggles. “This is Merrill. Merrill, this is my twin brother, Carver.”

“N-nice to meet you, ma’am.” Carver looks so damn flustered, Bethany can’t help but laugh, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her smile.

“Nice to meet you too, Carver.” Merrill curtsies haphazardly, tripping a little on her feet.

“Bethany was the fiddler in the show. She wanted to talk to Garrett.”

“Huh?” Carver breaks out of his staring to look accusingly at his sister. “Why in hell would anyone want to talk to our brother? What did you do?!?”

Bethany grins nervously. “Um, well…I may have invited her to go to New York with us.”

“WHAT!?!”

-

The walk back to their lodgings is silent, with Carver’s angry seething, and Merrill’s fear to speak. Bethany doesn’t even try. She knows it wasn’t exactly the best idea to invite this lady along with them without consulting anyone, but…She had looked at this young woman and she’d seemed so lost…She’d seen that look in mother, and brothers, and herself when she looked in the mirror. Hell, she’d even seen that look on Aveline’s face when she thought Bethany wasn’t looking.

She couldn’t leave someone behind when she saw so much of herself in her.

Garrett and Aveline weren’t back yet, but Leandra Hawke was in the barn they had secured as shelter, folding what seemed to be an enormous pile of clothes.

“We’re back.” Carver announces, staying in the doorway.

“Hello children, how was the show?” Leandra smiles at her children, which falters when she notices the young lady behind Bethany. “Who’s your friend?”

“Her name’s Merrill. She’s a violinist.” Bethany explains, leading the welsh lady inside. “Merrill, this is Leandra Hawke, our mother.”

“Nice to meet you ma’am.” Merrill nods her head politely.

“Well, sit down, tell me about the show.” Leandra waves her children over and they all take seat around the never ending pile of sheets and clothing. With four people, the work starts to look a lot less daunting.

Bethany and Carver talk about the Vaudeville show, telling their mother about the different types of acts they saw, retelling some of their jokes. Merrill watches and smiles, not speaking, just observing the looks on the family’s faces. She’s never quite seen it before, not back home.

“And then Carver went off to…do something, and that’s when I met Merrill!” Bethany finishes, and suddenly the conversation turns to her. Merrill finds her face hot as she remembers the encounter. There’s nothing particularly dignified of telling people how you lost your job.

Bethany seems to notice her discomfort, because she continues without letting her speak. “She played the violin in the pit, played it real well, too.”

“Is that true?” Leandra looks at Merrill and raises an eyebrow. “I used to have an aunt who played the violin. She was dreadful at it, truly. Hard instrument to get right.”

“Well, I got my musical skills from the devil, so it’s pretty smooth.” Merrill explains, taking out her violin from its case.

“The…The devil?” Leandra looks confused.

“Mhmm, met her at a crossroads and she taught me to fiddle in return for my soul.” Carver gives Bethany a look, probably deciding that the young lady his sister thought right to bring home was much more dangerous than he initially thought.

But no one really has time to dwell on that, because Merrill starts to play her fiddle, and everyone goes silent.

Merrill’s fingers are deft and quick, she plays fast and intricate, and though the tune is simple, there’s an underlying tone to it that makes the music clear and bright. She doesn’t even watch what she’s doing, her eyes closed as fingers fly along the neck of her fiddle, body moving with her arm and she draws her bow across the string. By the songs finish, her spectators have forgotten to breath.

Merrill sets down her violin in her lap, looking up bashfully at the silent faces of her audience. “Um, was that alright?” She asks. No one answers, and Merrill immediately panics. “On no, it wasn’t, was it? Should I have played something else? That was the kind of tune they had me play for the show, well actually those were more simple, and really I was just sort of improvising and I know I’m not very good at that, but I’m sorry and I’m rambling now dammit Merrill.”

“You’re fine, sweetie.” Leandra breaks in before Merrill can start another anxiety-driven ramble.

“That was just..It was too good.” Carver adds. Because it was. Something about the way she plays is beautiful in a dangerously ethereal way.

“You said the devil gave you this talent?” Leandra doesn’t sound quite so sceptical now.

“It was fantastic!” Bethany smiles, clasping Merrill’s hand in her own. “Play something else!”

A bright red moment later, Merrill is holding up her violin again and playing. This time it’s slow and haunting. The melancholy sound reverberates off the old barn walls, and the Hawke family soon realises they know this song, especially when their mother starts singing along to it in a nostalgic voice that reminds them of sitting by the fire with their father and his guitar some years ago, their parents singing to them as the fireflies broke out from their hiding places, Garrett joining in with his voice.

Bethany doesn’t realise she’s crying until it’s over, and a slow clap from the doorway breaks the dead silence that follows.

Garrett is home, Aveline behind him as he steps into the barn. “That was great.” He smiles and walks up behind their mom, pecking her on the cheek. Their mother hadn’t sung for them since…Well, since they lost their father. There’s something terribly somber hanging in the air as all four Hawkes realise it.

“Who is this?” Aveline asks, breaking the brief, tender moment. She’s looking at Merrill, who is looking between the five with trepidation.

“This is Merrill.” Bethany introduces the young lady to Aveline and Garrett, who incline their heads in greeting. An odd look is exchanged between Leandra and Garrett before his mother is standing and gathering the finished laundry in her arms.

“I’ll put this in the house. Children if you could get some water for dinner?” She says, moving towards the door, but it’s obvious the laundry is too heavy for her to carry by herself.

“Let me help you, Miss Hawke.” Merrill scrambles to her feet and catches one side of the basket. Then twins as well stand and give each other a silent conversation.

“Thank you Merrill. We’ll only be a moment, kids. Aveline, Garrett wash up, please.” And her and Merrill leave the barn, letting the twins, Garrett and Aveline alone for a few minutes.

“Bethany, explain.” All eyes on Beth, watching her shrink in on herself.

“Look, she just lost her job, and she’s hundreds of miles away from home, and the poor girl had nowhere to go. I offered for her to, um…Continue to New York with us?”

Those aren’t happy faces staring back at her.

“Garrett, we’re travelling north anyways, and she’s a sweet girl. We can’t just leave her to the wolves!”

“We don’t exactly have the resources to add another person.” Aveline points out. “Five is already a large travelling party. “

“And I don’t know if we can afford one more. We’re scraping by as it is.” Garrett adds.

“She can help with that! You heard her playing! She can join Carv and I in town. We were saying our music was thin, maybe now we can fill it better.”

Garrett sighs, pressing the palm of his hand to his face. “I need to think about this. Go get the water like mother said.”

Bethany sighs, but she tugs Carver out the door with her.

Just Aveline and Garrett now, they stare at one another.

“What do I do, Aveline?” Garrett asks.

“Ultimately it is your choice, but I suppose…I suppose I can weave a story to get her on the boat with us. It’s a gamble, though, we don’t exactly know her background. We don’t know if we can trust her.”

“I know, but…Beth is right, I don’t think we can just throw this girl to the wolves.”

“I understand…Again, it is _your choice._ ”

Garrett sighs. Sometimes he hates his life.

-

Three days later, the family is on the steamboat again, heading up the Mississippi. They don’t exactly think the boatman believed their tale about Merrill being Hawke’s estranged cousin, miraculously found by pure chance of serendipity, but she’s with them, and that’s what matter.

Once again, they were on the their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to apologise for the obvious O'Brother Where art Thou reference in this chapter. Probably not the last one I'll make, they essentially take place in the same time period (though canonically, O'Brother takes place during the Depression). this chapter actually talks a bit about Minstrelsy, which was prominent in Vaudeville culture, but is also like one of the most racist things in American history. I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, so we probably won't talk about it again. I only say this because if you look up Vaudeville you will probably find examples of blackface.
> 
> I listened to folk music whilst I wrote this chapter, so I gots some music refs for ya'll:  
> The first song that Merrill plays is supposed to improvisational, but I imagine it sounds a bit like the violin in Locust in the Willow as performed by Crooked Still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4oSok81III  
> This video plays the violin on the right side, which is disorienting because the violinist is on the listeners left, but yeah focus on her music.  
> The second song is without a doubt Wind and Rain, which is a very very old story/folk song probably from British Isles/Ireland area, though the story dates back to like Mesopotamia or something. The version I'd imagine this to be most like would, again, be Crooked Still's rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4e5QXP6RjU  
> Listen to Crooked Still in general, because that shit is amazing, btw  
> The next chapter is going to be Fenris


End file.
